Take another awe-inspiring leap into the darkly imagined future of REVELATION SPACE, where it is time for Humanity to meet its Unmakers.

Mankind has endured centuries of horrific plague and a particularly brutal interstellar war ... but there is still no time for peace and quiet.

Stirred from aeons of sleep, the Inhibitors - ancient alien killing machines - have begun the process of ridding the galaxy of its latest emergent intelligence: mankind. As a ragtag bag of refugees fleeing the first wave of the cull head towards an apparently insignificant moon light-years away, they discover an avenging angel, a girl born in ice. She has the power to lead mankind to safety, and the ability to draw down their darkest enemy.

And on a planet where vast travelling cathedrals crawl towards the treacherous fissure known as Absolution Gap, an unsettling truth becomes apparent: to beat one enemy, it may be necessary to forge an alliance with something much, much worse ...

Product Description

From Amazon

With Absolution Gap, Alastair Reynolds completes the star-spanning Inhibitors trilogy in which the previous books were Revelation Space and Redemption Ark. The Inhibitors are a mechanical plague, mindlessly but very resourcefully wiping out space-going civilisations that come to their notice. Their latest target is humanity, which lost a round in Redemption Ark. One small human faction now has stealth weapons and technologies that can almost fight Inhibitor assault to a standstill, but running away still seems the only long-term option.

From the same cryptic source as that supertechnology, filtered through a young girl's mind, comes the urgent message to make an interstellar trek to Hela, barren moon of the gas-giant Haldora. Hela is home to an obsessive religion fuelled partly by mind viruses and partly by the miracle of Haldora. This unpredictable, unbelievable event happens in an eyeblink, but more and more often. For the devout this increasing frequency is a signal of the End Times, which is why a group of vast mobile cathedrals lumbers forever around Hela--to keep Haldora at the zenith for best observation of its marvels. And on this last circuit, with a madman in command, the greatest cathedral of all plans an impossible short cut over the mysterious, delicate bridge spanning an immense rift in Hela's surface: Absolution Gap.

There's a lot of action with both familiar and enjoyably exotic weapons; there's suffering, deceit, loss and triumph; there's a hideous revenge straight out of Jacobean tragedy, a series of awesome revelations and the last voyage of the lightship Nostalgia for Infinity that was so strangely transformed in Revelation Space. Ultimately, behind the enigma of Haldora, a dreadful choice awaits: whether or not to bargain with powers that may be the answer to the Inhibitors--but may be something worse. Alastair Reynolds makes his huge story compellingly readable, with characters we care about, and gives impressive descriptions of beauty and cataclysm. This is very superior space opera. --David Langford--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.

Most helpful customer reviews

I read the trilogy over a two-week period. I must admit it has been a roller coaster ride for me. There are vast swathes of the work that is immaculate in its conception, scope and execution. There is also the impression that I have that the book is, for a lot of it, quite tedious, boring and utterly frustrating. The central tenant of the book is "curiosity kills and absolute curiosity kills absolutely" which is essentially what the first and third book of the trilogy is about. These two book sandwich my favorite, which is "Redemption Ark". It is with the second book that Reynolds hit the mark in my view, especially the way he characterized Skade and Clavain and the struggle between them. It is a mystery to me why Reynold took so much effort to create some really deep characters only to tear them down in the most trivial of ways. I say trivial since there seems to be no existential consequences to these characters leaving the stage. Looking back on the rescue of Aura and Khouri, I can't believe the callous way in which it was done. Why Illia had to go off and fight the inhibitors with the hell class weapons I will never know. Or consider the religious aspects of the Absolution Gap, it came out of no where since he did not take time to talk about God and faith in the first two books. One moment I had nano-technology related plagues and weapons of Armageddon and the next I was confronted by demons, angels and cathedrals. I could go on with a lot more but I shouldn't since there is a lot in these books that merits praise. After all I did read all three.It poses deeper questions about the nature of mankind and our place in the Universe. It asks whether we are alone. Reynolds peers into the future and presents many vistas that are compelling albeit in an imperfect form.Read more ›

Over two decades ago Clavain, Scorpio and refugees landed on the Pattern Juggler world of Ararat. Over time Clavain and Scorpio led the development of a thriving community. However, in the past half a year, Clavain has become increasingly reclusive and neglectful of his duties until lights in the sky proclaim that their enemy, the Inhibitors, apparently have found them. Now they must flee their haven choosing a moon that orbits a weird gas giant planet.On the moon Hela, exists the strange Quaichist cult with their enormous movable Cathedrals. The cult with their movable cathedrals follows the track of the gas giant Haldora that the satelite orbits. Clavain and his exiles arrive at Haldora where they will either save humanity from the Inhibitors or enable the enemy to complete the final solution.The final tale of the Revelation Space trilogy is an entertaining science fiction tale that will please readers who prefer a cerebral tale with limited military action. The story line contains several brilliantly developed concepts that will send many readers comparing the fate of the protagonists with that of our earth-bound mankind's providence. Action seekers will find the pace slow and the battle warriors will wonder why there are such short abrupt skirmishes. Still ABSOLUTION GAP is an intriguing look at religion, war, societies, and economics in outer space, just more passively highbrow than active exploits.Harriet Klausner

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com:
106 reviews

117 of 125 people found the following review helpful

Why, Mr. Reynolds...why?Aug. 9 2004

By
Amazon Customer
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Hardcover

Oh, the humanity! Everything everybody wrote below is true: great, gothic science fiction, creeping horror, technology, darkness. Wonderful, additional storylines thrown in. Oh, and real character development. The first two books (three, including Chasm City) sold me on the Epic Quest of mankind against the Inhibitors, with wonderful little mysteries thrown in, along with tantalizing hints that they all might be related.

But what do we have here? Toss the major connecting thread between the books... the Inhibitors explained away in less than four pages. Magical "out-of-nowhere" saviors who are hinted at only twice in the entire story, and done in a way that they seem nothing more than a callous afterthought.

Imagine this...you've worked your way through the first two (three, including Chasm City) books, slowly grown used to and then developed an affinity for Mr. Reynolds' wonderfully unique style. You're happy with the subtle hints at 700 years of human history, having been given enough of the details to fill in the dark, gothic story with your own imagination. But five hundred pages to go, you start thinking, "Now we'll see the culmination of it all!" Two-hundred fifty pages, and you're thinking, "Ok, anytime now..." One hundred pages, and there's a sinking feeling..." Fifty pages, with the ending to the central theme of the series nowhere in sight, you finally realize the awful truth: this whole storyline was *never* about the Inhibitors. It was *all* a mechanism to force us to fill in the blanks of the future history of humanity, with the Inhibitor battle only a convenient way to move things along.

Until, that is, Mr. Reynolds couldn't write about it anymore. So, with nothing more than a rubber stamp called "Epilogue", the story ends. No mysteries solved. Mademoiselle? Nope. Conjoiners? Nope. Plague? Nope. Inhibitors? "Poof!" they are gone with the aid of magical fairies, only to be replaced by newer, badder bad guys. But none of this was what this story was about. As a literary mechanism, I applaud Mr. Reynolds' achievement. If you read books to be entertained along the way, this whole series is wonderful and I highly recommend it - I enjoyed 3/4 of it immensely. But if you like a story with a good ending, it is supremely disappointing... I, for one, feel cheated. It's actually worse than Hamilton and the Night's Dawn ending. Mr. Reynolds' style is to leave much to our imagination, and for most of this series he does so brilliantly. But, where he carefully takes thousands of pages to weave us a story of the past 700 years, he give us the future in a mere four.

Oh well. I suppose it was worth it.

65 of 73 people found the following review helpful

Incredibly disappointing.Sept. 11 2004

By
Jane Avriette
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Hardcover
Verified Purchase

First, I'd like to mirror what many of the other reviewers have said. Specifically a correlary between Stephen Baxter and Reynolds. He does seem to have a bit of a problem continuing this story.

I think what nobody has mentioned here, and bears mentioning, is that Reynolds left his job as a scientist to pursue writing full time to write this book. It seems that perhaps he got a little cocky.

Where the previous two books (I disagree that this is a four book series) were cold, realistic, hard science fiction (with the notable, but forgivable exception of Skade's FTL escapades and the cache weapons), his resolve to write concise books simply disappears with the third. Bizarre weapons ("hypometric" weapons, "bladder mines", "cryo math", and so on) and forces peek out and begin to play very large parts in this book.

Additionally, characters are spun through very strange trajectories not expected from the previous books. Scorpio is nearly a different character entirely. Brannigan is, well, a person again. Khouri is almost maternal, and rather boring. Clavain is near useless, and certainly uninteresting, and Skade is implausible(er) and not nearly as formidable.

What happened? I don't think anyone but Reynolds can really answer this. As somebody who went to amazon.co.uk to get copies of his books which were unavailable here in the US, I am definitely somebody who is a fan of his. After reading this, however, I'm not sure I'd read another of his books. My hope is that he will realize from the vast majority of reviews of his recent book, that he has taken a turn that was unexpected, and that perhaps he should reconsider.

At any rate, I would also suggest buying as a paperback. Or borrowing. This isn't worth the cost of admission, and it really wasn't worth the time I spent reading it. The suspense at the end of the book (a paltry 60-80 pages) is roughly the same quality as the middle to end of the second book, but is completely blunted by a weak, anticlimactic ending. This series needed a solid ending, regardless of whether it was a lead in to another book. What we have here is loose ends gummed up, rather than sewn up.

Suggested for hardcore fans who have to know, recommend against it for anyone else.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

not up to level of previous booksJuly 9 2004

By
A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Hardcover

With this book, unlike the previous 3 of his I have read, I was disappointed.The entire question of shrouder/mademoiselle penetration of the conjoiners vanishes. Presumably if the Night Council WAS mademoiselle, it still existed somewhere.The protagonist AND antagonist from Redemption Ark are removed from the story early in a clearly contrived fashion whose only impact besides clearing the slate for new characters is to give scorpio periodic memories.The Nestbuilders are only presented in an allusive fashion, but play a large role in the plot. Invisible Hand material (when the story goes to far to be recovered by characters in their enviroment, a new element will be used to resolve the conflict in the plot) in my opinion. The Shadow entities on the other hand at least were built up in the story some.Greenfly seem to be thrown in after the fact as a way to not have a totally happy ending, particularly if he is planning on writing in this universe more, possibly about Sky Haussmann, assuming he is the person described in the evacuees from Yellowstone.I would wait for paperback on this one if I had to do it again.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

A flawed novel...Feb. 8 2006

By
rpbird
- Published on Amazon.com

Read the other reviews and you'll find the same complaints echoed over and over again. They can be reduced to this observation: there is a profound carelessness on the part of the author that cannot be hidden. Yes, the writing is mostly excellent, Reynolds has an exceptional skill with the written word. Yes, there are several interesting ideas and a vast cargo of cool SF toys for the discriminating gourmet of the apocalyptic. All of it is rendered irrelevant by disastrously bad story choices, sloppy workmanship at the conclusion, and a hackneyed reliance on what the fancy types call "deus ex machina," when he's stuck, the author pulls something out of thin air. Or maybe out of the lower orifice of his body. Doing it once is vastly irritating; doing it three times in a row can be classified as a true dirty deed. All within pages of each other. For those who actually liked this mash, I'll list them. First came the revelation about the shadows, then came the hidden race, then came the greenflies (Don't they have a spray for that?). True aggravation from a writer with a great deal of talent, who for some reason can't deploy that talent on a regular basis.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

DisappointingJune 8 2005

By
Kevin D. Peterson
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Mass Market Paperback

I enjoyed the other books in the series, and was looking forward to this one, but it isn't nearly as good. The characters are dull, no one developed well enough for me to identify with anyone. The overall plot is interesting enough, but it all seems a repeat of ideas from the earlier books. Oh, look, more super advanced technology from a mysterious source. More heroes gallantly throwing their lives away to save humanity. More ghosts talking to people from inside their heads. *yawn* It was as if Reynolds pretty much ran out of material but still had to fill 750 pages. The most interesting aspect was the Quaicheist religion, but the more he developed the idea, the less believable it became.

Overall, I was very disappointed. I'd almost recommend not bothering to read it and never knowing how the series turns out. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't already hooked on the first two (three) books.